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Ballot initiatives to require labeling of foods with genetically modified ingredients, or GMOs, failed to pass Tuesday in Colorado and Oregon, after agribusiness giants Monsanto, PepsiCo and Kraft spent millions to help defeat the measures. But in a victory for food safety advocates, Hawaii’s Maui County passed one of the strongest anti-GMO measures ever, despite the opposition outspending supporters by a ratio of 87 to 1. The Maui GMO moratorium calls for a complete suspension of the cultivation of GMO crops until studies conclusively prove they are safe. Maui is often called "GMO Ground Zero" and the moratorium that passed Tuesday could have national implications because multinational seed producers, such as Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences, use the county to research and develop new seed varieties. Under the new measure, farmers who knowingly cultivate GMOs could be penalized with a $50,000-per-day fine. On Wednesday, Monsanto released a statement saying it plans to ask the Maui court to declare the initiative "legally flawed" and not enforceable. We are joined in Maui by Dr. Lorrin Pang, a public health official who helped draft and submit Maui’s successful GMO moratorium initiative.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Ballot initiatives to require labeling of foods with genetically modified ingredients, or GMOs, failed to pass Tuesday in Colorado and Oregon, after agribusiness giants Monsanto, PepsiCo and Kraft spent millions to help defeat the measures. But in a victory for food safety advocates, Hawaii’s Maui County passed one of the strongest anti-GMO measures ever, despite the opposition outspending supporters by a ratio of 87 to one. The Maui GMO moratorium calls for a complete suspension of the cultivation of GMO crops until studies conclusively prove they are safe. The studies will be paid for by the seed companies but administered by the county.
In the weeks before the election, the anti-moratorium group, billed as "Citizens Against the Maui County Farming Ban," paid for more than $1.3 million worth of TV ads statewide. In one ad, the group claimed the moratorium would cause the loss of hundreds of jobs and devastate the county’s economy.
SHARON ZALSOS: This initiative truly has zero aloha. It’s not just GMO. It’s the mom-and-pop store. It’s the coffee shop down the road. I don’t know how people will pay their mortgages. I don’t know how people will pay their bills. I don’t know how people will get their medical or send their kids to school or provide clothing for them. This will affect our economy. This will affect our future.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Scores of Maui residents worked to counter pro-GMO propaganda with grassroots outreach to share their concerns about seed companies’ farming practices. They also created their own ads seeking to debunk their opponents’ claims.
ALIKA ATAY: Aloha, Maui County. You’re being misinformed by a group calling themselves the Citizens Against the Farming Ban.
EVAN RYAN: The GMO initiative asks for a temporary suspension of GMO crops while health and environmental impact studies can be conducted. There is no farming ban.
IPO MOKIAO: This bill affects the chemical companies doing GMO. That’s just 1 percent of all farming operations in Maui County. They paid for those ads.
AMY GOODMAN: Maui is often called "GMO Ground Zero," and the moratorium that passed Tuesday could have national implications because multinational seed producers, such as Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences, use the county to research and develop new seed varieties. Under the new measure, farmers who knowingly cultivate GMOs could be penalized with a $50,000 fine per day. On Wednesday, Monsanto released a statement saying it plans to ask the Maui court to declare the initiative, quote, "legally flawed" and not enforceable.
For more, we go now to Maui, where we’re joined by Dr. Lorrin Pang. He has served as a consultant to the World Health Organization and works for Maui’s Department of Health. As a private citizen, Dr. Pang has raised concerns about the possible health and environmental risks posed by GMOs. He helped draft and submit Maui’s successful GMO moratorium initiative.
And from the studios of Vermont PBS in Colchester, Vermont, we’re joined by Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. The company has campaigned heavily for GMO labeling in its home state, Vermont, as well as in Oregon, where it renamed one of its ice cream flavors "Food Fight Fudge Brownie."
Well, Dr. Lorrin Pang and Jerry Greenfield, welcome to Democracy Now! Let’s start in Hawaii, where this anti-GMO initiative actually won on Tuesday. How did it happen? What exactly does the new bill, the new iniative, say, Lorrin Pang? And how did it happen?
DR. LORRIN PANG: Well, the how it happens was historical. I’ve been watching this issue for the last 12 years. Twelve years ago, we began to win in court. And I guess that raised some eyebrows. And we tried to win legislatively. Over the last 12 years, we’ve been repeatedly not heard. The legislators in charge, whoever’s committee, would send it off to other committees. We could never get a hearing on this. Nonetheless, we had a major victory about five years ago legislatively on the county level. The Big Island County and Maui, we blocked the genetic modification of taro—which is important culturally to the Hawaiians—in the laboratory, in the markets and in the fields. So we tried for this one, but we knew that legislatively legislators would not hear it, so we put it on a petition for a voters’ initiative about three months ago. And looks like we won, barely won, a couple days ago.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Were you surprised, Dr. Pang, that the initiative actually succeeded?
DR. LORRIN PANG: I’ve been so used to losing so many times in the Legislature that I guess it’s kind of like an abused kid: You don’t expect anything better. Nonetheless, this issue has moved very well over the last 12 years. Twelve years ago, I could name on two hands all the people in the state who knew what GMO, genetically modified organisms, stood for. Now we have thousands of people. So it really has been a grassroots education effort.
AMY GOODMAN: And what do you say to Monsanto, who said this is just illegal, a court’s got to throw it out? And the significance of this goes way beyond Maui. As we said in the lede, this is where Monsanto and Dow, they do a lot of their seed growing, and you’re saying, "You cannot grow GMO crops."
DR. LORRIN PANG: Correct. I think we have the right as a county, the lowest level of government, to be—pass our own rules, to be more precautious, that we are not to be pre-empted, in the name of precaution, by the higher governments, state and federal. Now, we will not do things that violate people’s rights, but the lower-level governments always have the right to be more precautious. We do not feel that the regulators—the EPA, FDA, USDA—nor the state have our best interests and are cautious enough with respect to health and environment.
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While the two parties have plenty to fight about in the new Republican Congress, Mitch McConnell, the possible next Senate majority leader, says he shares common ground with the president on international trade. What does this mean for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)? We get analysis from Lori Wallach of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, who notes that while some analysts say GOP gains will accelerate the passage of fast-track legislation in Congress to enable an agreement on the TPP, “it is kind of hard for the Republicans to voluntarily delegate more authority to the guy they’ve been attacking as the imperial president who grabs power that’s not his.” The controversial so-called free trade deal involves 12 countries and nearly 40 percent of the global economy. Trade ministers from the 12 countries negotiating the trade deal are due to meet in Beijing ahead of the Asia-Pacific economic summit next week to continue negotiations.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: With Republicans set to take control of Congress for the first time in eight years, President Obama has pledged to focus on compromise with the party. Republicans emerged from the most expensive midterm in history with a majority of seats in the Senate and their biggest majority in the House in more than 60 years. On Wednesday, President Obama addressed the new power dynamic in Washington.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Today I had a chance to speak with John Boehner and congratulated Mitch McConnell on becoming the next Senate majority leader. And I told them both that I look forward to finishing up this Congress’s business and then working together for the next two years to advance America’s business. And I very much appreciated Leader McConnell’s words last night about the prospect of working together to deliver for the American people.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Shortly before President Obama spoke Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader-in-waiting Mitch McConnell held his own press conference in Louisville, Kentucky. He said his first priority was, quote, "to get the Senate back to normal." When asked what specific areas he could work on with President Obama, this was part of his response.
SEN. MITCH McCONNELL: Trade agreements. The president and I were just talking about that right before I came over here. Most of his party is unenthusiastic about international trade. We think it’s good for America. And so, I’ve got a lot of members who believe that international trade agreements are a winner for America. And the president and I discussed that right before I came over here, and I think he’s interested in moving forward. I said, "Send us trade agreements. We’re anxious to take a look at them."
AMY GOODMAN: One of the international trade agreements in question is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. Some analysts say Republican gains will accelerate the passage of fast-track legislation in Congress to enable an agreement on the TPP. The secretive trade deal involves 12 countries and nearly 40 percent of the global economy. Trade ministers from the 12 TPP countries are due to meet in Beijing ahead of the Asia-Pacific economic summit next week to continue negotiations.
To see how the Republican victory might impact these negotiations, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch and author of The Rise and Fall of Fast Track Trade Authority.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Lori. Start out by explaining just what the TPP is and what exactly McConnell says he has in common with the president.
LORI WALLACH: Well, the TPP, unfortunately, is really a delivery mechanism for a lot of the things McConnell and the Republicans like. So, for instance, it would increase the duration of patents for Big Pharma and, as a result, give them windfall profits but increase our medicine prices. It could roll back financial regulation on big banks. It could limit Internet freedom, sort of sneak through the back door the Stop Online Piracy Act, SOPA. And—they love this—it would give special privileges and rights for foreign corporations to skirt around our courts and sue the U.S. government to raid our treasury over any environmental, consumer health law that they think undermine their expected future profits, the so-called "investor-state" enforcement system. Plus, it would have the NAFTA-style rules that make it easier to offshore jobs, making it easier to relocate to low-wage countries.
So, the sort of grotesque question is: Why does President Obama like the TPP? It’s pretty clear why McConnell likes it. It was negotiated with the assistance of 600 corporate advisers, official corporate trade advisers in the U.S. The agreement has been the initiative of the Obama administration. It was started by Bush, but instead of turning it around and making it something different, the Obama folks picked it up and, frankly, have made it even more extreme. So, the question really, in a way, is, the Democratic Congress—the Democrats in Congress and the public, including a lot of tea party conservatives, have plenty not to like. Oh, I forgot about the part of TPP where it bans Buy America, Buy Local. Really bad agreement, 29 chapters, only a few of them about trade, so it’s really a sneak attack branded as a trade agreement.
And the key to that, probably, is right now a fight between the U.S. and Japan in agriculture. So there’s a little weird twist there, where the Republicans in Congress have said that either Japan has to get rid of all of its tariffs on agriculture products or it should be thrown out of the agreement. In a weird way, it’s not clear to me that the Republicans taking over makes it actually easier for Obama to make that deal, given they’re the ones who have been particularly harsh about that issue. But there is this big negotiation coming up in China in a week. And this was supposed to be the deadline to finish TPP, which, with any luck and a lot of citizen activism in all the countries, is not going to happen again.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And you actually make the point, Lori Wallach, that even the fast track is not likely to go any quicker through Congress as a result of this Republican win. Could you explain why that is?
LORI WALLACH: So, a lot of people who might read the mainstream media have seen all of these stories saying, oh, the thing that’s going to happen really quickly is Congress is going to delegate its trade authority, its constitutional exclusive control over trade, to the president through this old Nixon-era, very extreme procedure, rarely used, called "fast track." And that’s a procedure that basically gives Congress’s authority over trade to the president. Congress ends up handcuffed, and an agreement gets negotiated, signed before the Congress ever approves it, and then the president gets to write legislation. It’s not subject to committee amendment, and it gets a guaranteed 90-day vote with no amendments. Couldn’t we wish that we had that kind of procedure for legislation we like? So that procedure has only been used 16 times in the history of the country, but it was used for NAFTA and the World Trade Organization.
Congress—for this whole Congress, the president’s been trying to extract that from Congress, that extreme authority, and Congress has said no. So the big question now and the big PR campaign by the corporations is, "Oh, with the Republicans, it’ll be a snap." The reality is, actually, the fight over this is in the House of Representatives, and there are plenty of conservative tea party members of Congress who, number one, think this violates the Constitution. It does break some of the most important checks and balances. It lets the executive branch diplomatically legislate. But in addition, it’s kind of hard for the Republicans to voluntarily delegate more authority to the guy they’ve been attacking as the imperial president who grabs power that’s not his. So, the fact in the matter is that if we all do our work, starting now—it’s going to be really rough between now and August, when Congress goes on August recess—there’s a very dangerous window, where, for sure, McConnell and Boehner and Obama are going to want to play footsie on fast track. But the math doesn’t really change enough in the House, if we do our work, that we can’t save ourselves from it. And that’s the reality underneath all the corporate hype.
AMY GOODMAN: Lori, I want to turn to a clip from one of McConnell’s ad campaigns. After his opponent, Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, criticized McConnell for supporting foreign trade agreements that export jobs, the McConnell campaign released an ad refuting the allegation, saying he has, quote, "fought against unfair foreign trade." This is a clip.
TEAM MITCH AD: He’s been called a hero for saving Kentucky jobs. At Cardinal Aluminum, Mitch helped save hundreds of jobs when he fought against unfair foreign trade. At Blue Grass Army Depot, Mitch stopped a budget shortfall from hurting hundreds of working families.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you translate, Lori Wallach?
LORI WALLACH: Well, I couldn’t, really, using words that would be appropriate for broadcast, but—the baloney, I guess, is what I would say. So, the back story of that is that McConnell, the guy who, as a Republican in Kentucky, where there are no Democrats in Congress, would be a shoe-in, right, to get re-elected, but actually the Democrat who challenged him is suddenly catching up on him, and people start looking at that race, saying, "What’s going on?"
Well, it turns out she did ad after ad, and so did the national Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and others, that attacked him, because in 20 of 20 trade votes, the man has voted for offshoring-job, importing-bad-food, undermining-our-future trade agreements. The guy has never not seen a NAFTA-WTO-CAFTA-China trade agreement he does not love. So she starts running these ads about him voting for these agreements and the job offshoring. And Kentucky, as well as everyplace else in the country, has been clobbered. You can go to our website, TradeWatch.org, and look up the certified job loss from these trade agreements for your state, your city. So, they start running these ads. His numbers start to go down; hers start to go up. There are so many of these ads, the man has to basically run an ad campaigning against his own record to try and cover himself on his bad trade record.
And that’s a lesson, again, back to fast track, of why we can still win. People should not be disheartened about the prospect of having fast track dumped on us. Enough conservatives, because it’s a conservative state—enough conservatives get it, too. No one wants job offshoring. No one wants foreign corporations skirting our courts and going to international tribunals to raid the Treasury. No one is for banning Buy America or Buy Local and losing control of how our tax dollars are or not reinvested in our communities.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, banning Buy—
LORI WALLACH: This is a transpartisan issue.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, banning Buy America?
LORI WALLACH: So, a provision in the TPP would require—and this is done. Part of the agreement isn’t done, but this part’s done. And it would require us, when we buy—when the government buys automobiles, buys pens, everything, paper, office furniture, that right now, under the Buy America Act, which has been around since Roosevelt, if it’s made in America and there’s enough of it to actually supply the government, if it’s available, you have to use the government money to buy American goods, which is great because it reinvests the money back into more jobs in our country. And also, that Buy America policy is used to create new, really, innovations. So, before we had auto efficiency requirements for cars in the private sector, there was a standard that was set up, the CAFE standards—was for government purchases, so that the companies would actually have a market to do the right thing. That’s being done right now for renewable energy purchases, the Renewable Portfolio Standard. So we use this both to create jobs at home and to create industry innovations to promote our policies.
In the TPP, verboten. You have to give equal treatment to any good made in any TPP country for any government contract over a certain threshold, regardless of the Buy America rule. It gets waived. And so, for instance, all of the Chinese government-owned companies in Vietnam, which are constantly getting written up for their terrible conditions, we’d have to have a bid from them, where obviously things would be cheaper than, say, furniture made in North Carolina, where otherwise the government would be buying office furniture in the U.S. with U.S. money. And this is also the rule that was in NAFTA. It snuck in a ban on Buy America for any company in any trade partner country. The big deal on this is, with the TPP, of course, this is supposed to be what’s called a launching agreement, so every other country that wants to join can join. So, basically, it’s—with all of the problems in TPP, it’s bigger than already the 12 countries that are in it, because any other country can join.
AMY GOODMAN: But Lori, what is it—
LORI WALLACH: It would undermine Buy Local.
AMY GOODMAN: What if you refuse to do that? What if you said, "No, we’re going to buy America"? What’s the enforcement mechanism?
LORI WALLACH: So, that’s a very good question because, unlike most of our international agreements, the TPP has two strong enforcement mechanisms. First, if the U.S., for instance, were to continue to buy American and give that preference to our domestic economy, or, for that matter, states with Buy Local or communities with Buy Local school food, all of those things would be a violation of that agreement. Then, what happens is, any other country can drag the U.S. into a TPP tribunal, and if we don’t get rid of the law, the U.S. would face perpetual trade sanctions, fines. This is actually enforceable international corporate law.
But worse, in the TPP, the TPP provisions on investment would make some of the TPP constraints on policy actually enforceable by private individual companies, when an individual company could privately enforce a public treaty by insisting the U.S. government compensate the private investor or company out of our taxpayer dollars for any violation of the agreement that undermines their expected future profits. So, while we have multilateral environmental agreements or human rights or labor rights agreements, that aren’t that enforceable—we set the standard internationally, but each country is supposed to enforce it domestically—there’s no sanction. With TPP or the WTO, there are sanctions. There is the ability to extract cash. And that’s what makes these agreements so dangerous and why everyone needs to talk to their member of Congress in the House of Representatives and get an eye-to-eye commitment: Will you vote no on fast track? Do not give away your constitutional authority, to save us from these bad trade agreements.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Lori Wallach, so, could you say a little about where Democrats and Republicans stand on these precise provisions that you’ve just outlined of this treaty? You’ve said that both Democrats and Republicans are very unhappy. The one thing they agree on is our current trade status. So how is it that they would wish to resolve it, and how the TPP fits into that?
LORI WALLACH: So, number one, you can go and actually see the polling of the public polling. We keep a running summary at our website, TradeWatch.org, that shows you this stunning agreement across this very divided country between Democrats, Independents and Republicans. And conservative Republicans and progressive Democrats actually agree the most against TPP, against fast track, against the investor tribunals, against the ban on Buy America. The corporate middle of each party is mushier.
As far as the members of Congress, so the way the math works—and this is the House of Representatives where this fight’s going to happen—almost all the Democrats are against the old fast-track system, the legislative luge run that rolls bad trade agreements right over Congress. However, in the Republican Party there’s a split. One should not write off talking to one’s member of Congress if they’re a Republican. There is a Wall Street versus Main Street split in the Republicans. The more conservative and the more moderate of the Republicans are against fast track. The sort of corporate, "main," Wall Street contingent are for fast track. That’s what the Chamber of Commerce wants. So, interestingly, the more progressive—there are a handful of progressive Republicans. They support labor rights, etc. Those guys and gals and the tea party conservatives, together, are the bloc of Republicans who don’t want fast track.
And by the way, this is not just right now. When President Clinton, Mr. Trade Expansion, tried to get fast track himself, because he only had it for two of his eight years as president, he was defeated on the House floor when 171 Democrats were joined by 71 Republicans in 1998, who said, "No, we are not going to give away our constitutional trade authority, to make sure that these trade agreements don’t rewrite our domestic laws, don’t offshore our jobs." And that combination of left and right maintained trade authority for the Congress, and Clinton was denied. And, in fact, in the last 20 years, there’s only been a delegation of fast track for five of the last 20 years. So it would be an anomaly if suddenly Congress caved in.
But you know, with this election, that is going to be one of the top things that’s going to come right out of the shoot in January. So, folks don’t want TPP. They don’t want fast track. And if they don’t want fast track, you’ve got to get to your members of Congress now and get a firm commitment, including those new members who are coming in. So, as soon as they come here, they are going to be marinated in corporate lobbyists. You’ve got to get them before it’s too late. Once they’re here in January, they’re going to be in the soup. So there’s a window between now and before Congress starts, the new Congress, to get to your new members of the House of Representatives and get a direct, eye-to-eye "I will vote no. I will hold onto my constitutional authority. I will represent you, not give away the authority to be able to represent you in Washington."
AMY GOODMAN: Lori Wallach—
LORI WALLACH: And, of course, go to your old members, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly, we just have a minute, but two things. Obama, President Obama, is going to Beijing for the APEC summit, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. What’s going to happen there? And does it matter who’s in charge of Congress, the House or the Senate, based on what you’re saying, around so-called free trade?
LORI WALLACH: Well, it does matter, in the sense that is probably the case that the corporate agenda on trade has a friendlier ear with, say, a Mitch McConnell as compared to a Majority Leader Reid, who personally just said, "I am not putting fast track on the floor." He just said, "No, basta." So, in the sense that the Senate is not really where the fight is—but it was very helpful to have Senator Reid saying, "We’re just not doing it," and he shut down the whole thing—that is not good for us. But the fight over whether or not fast track can be passed is the House. In the Senate, the bill always passes. In the House, it’s often been stopped. So the House is where the fight is. So, yes, it matters.
However, on the APEC issue, whether or not there’s a TPP, to some degree, is not so much, as I said, affected by who is in Congress, except the Republicans have been tougher on some of the agriculture market access issues. What’s going to happen at APEC is, everyone who’s worked against TPP in the country should feel great, because you’ll remember this was the deadline President Obama set in June to finally be done with this, and it was supposed to be done last APEC, last year at this time, and they’re still not done. And that’s because our brothers and sisters in the other countries, as well as folks here—and today is the start of a national action day on TPP. If you go to TradeWatch.org, you can figure out about the activities going on around the country. Or go to CitizensTrade.org, see a list of all the activities. Same thing is happening in Australia and New Zealand and Singapore and Malaysia and Japan. And so, this campaigning has caused enough upset, that even though all the heads of state—Obama’s going to China, he’s going to be with all the other heads of TPP countries—they had hoped to have a signing ceremony. And with any luck and a little more campaigning, they won’t. But if we don’t stop fast track, it will be right over our shoulders in January, February, March, that they will make a deal. So it’s very dicey right now. We can make the difference.
AMY GOODMAN: Lori Wallach, thanks so much for joining us. It is kind of funny that the Republicans take the Senate, and President Obama heads to China. Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, author of The Rise and Fall of Fast Track Trade Authority.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s—that’s right, the ice cream company—[joins] us. But what happened in Maui, in Hawaii, around the issue of genetically modified foods? Stay with us.
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A historic number of marijuana legalization measures were on the ballot Tuesday, and most of them passed. Voters in Oregon and Alaska joined Colorado and Washington to make pot available for adults to buy in retail shops, while voters in the District of Columbia approved an initiative that makes it legal for adults to possess two ounces of marijuana and grow up to six marijuana plants in their home. One medical marijuana amendment narrowly lost in Florida, while another in Guam won by 56 percent, making it the first U.S. territory to approve such a law. Meanwhile, California overwhelmingly voted to change six low-level, nonviolent offenses, including simple drug possession, from felonies to misdemeanors. We speak with Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, whose lobbying arm helped draft and support many of Tuesday’s successful measures.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We end our show looking at the wave of drug policy reform measures that passed Tuesday. Voters in Oregon and Alaska joined Colorado and Washington in making pot available for adults to buy in retail shops. And voters in the District of Columbia approved an initiative that makes it legal for adults to possess two ounces of marijuana and to grow up to six marijuana plants in their home. One medical marijuana amendment narrowly lost in Florida, while another in Guam won by 56 percent, making it the first U.S. territory to approve such a law.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, California overwhelmingly voted to change six low-level, nonviolent offenses, including simple drug possession, from felonies to misdemeanors. And after a two-year campaign in New Jersey, voters approved Public Question No. 1, which allows legislation to go into effect that will reduce pretrial detention for low-risk offenders. A report by the Drug Policy Alliance found nearly three-quarters of people in New Jersey jails are awaiting trial rather than serving a sentence, often for more than 10 months. Nearly 40 percent have the option to post bail but can’t afford to do it.
For more, we’re joined by Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. Their lobbying arm helped draft and support many of these measures.
Ethan, welcome back to Democracy Now! Just why don’t you lay out what happened in these midterm elections?
ETHAN NADELMANN: Yeah, I mean, mostly we had initially thought that we’d wait until 2016 to try to move forward with the other marijuana legalization initiatives, because typically young people are so much less likely to vote in a non-presidential-election year. But we decided, together with the local activists, to roll the dice. And I’ll tell you, Oregon, I think it won just about as big as Colorado and Washington did two years ago. Alaska is the first red state to endorse marijuana legalization. D.C. was a 70 percent vote in favor and the first marijuana campaign that was really framed in racial justice terms and that focused on the racial disproportionality of marijuana arrests. So it was really, I think, an incredible endorsement of what Colorado and Washington did two years ago, and it really set the stage nicely for what’s going to happen two years from now, when you’ll see a much bigger wave of marijuana legalization initiatives across the country
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Where do you anticipate in—
ETHAN NADELMANN: I should also—
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Go ahead.
ETHAN NADELMANN: Yeah, I was just going to say, and on the medical marijuana, you know, Guam, funny that it happened in Guam, but that’s a fairly conservative political jurisdiction, a large U.S. military presence. So that was significant. And in Florida, it technically lost, because Florida requires 60 percent of the vote to win a ballot initiative, but 57 to 58 of the electorate in Florida endorsed medical marijuana. So, it may have lost in Florida, but nationally speaking, that huge majority is going to resonate throughout the South and on Capitol Hill. So we really do see a transformation in public sentiment on these issues. And those reforms, linked with the other changes in California and New Jersey, suggest that increasingly the American public is ready to end marijuana prohibition, to tax and regulate this stuff. And on the criminal justice side, it suggests that, you know, a significant majority of Americans now say, "Let’s roll back the prison populations. You know, let’s push back the power of the prison-industrial complex." I think the wind’s really at our backs right now on these issues.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Ethan Nadelmann, so where do you see this going in 2016?
ETHAN NADELMANN: Well, I assume that California is going to be the anchor of the marijuana legalization effort. We’re already making plans, talking with allies and activists and others there, elected officials. But I’d keep my eye—I think that Maine and Nevada are very likely to have initiatives on the ballot in 2016. I’d say that Massachusetts and Arizona have a decent shot. And since a lot of times the initiative is taken not by national organizations like mine, but by local organizations and local activists, who then reach out to us seeking our support, I’d say you never know where else it’s going to pop up. As for medical marijuana, I’d keep my eye probably on Arkansas, Ohio. They’re among the few remaining states that have not yet legalized medical marijuana and that also have a ballot initiative process.
AMY GOODMAN: And the whole issue of both decriminalization of marijuana, medical marijuana, and then these drug sentences, if you could talk about that, and the drug war, what it means for U.S. and Mexico? We’re speaking to you in Mexico right now.
ETHAN NADELMANN: Yeah, no, I’m down here at TED-like festival, Ciudad de las Ideas, in Puebla, Mexico. I think there’s two major implications outside the United States. The first one is that when you’re down here in Mexico, the previous president, Calderón, oversaw this massive and disastrous war on drugs. But to his credit, when he had a chance to stir up the broader debate and raise questions about the failures of prohibition, he did so. The current president, Peña Nieto, has really shied away from this issue. And what I’m told by many people who know him personally in Mexico is the only thing forcing him to think about this issue and the only thing that will stir up the debate within Mexico is for California to legalize marijuana. You know, Washington and Colorado raised eyebrows. Oregon and Alaska are raising more eyebrows. But California is sort of the big chinchilla as far as the Mexican debate is concerned, because at that point it becomes sort of absurd for Mexico to continue with a failed prohibitionist policy on marijuana, while meanwhile in California they’re taxing and regulating it.
I think the other major consequence is that as a result of—
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.
ETHAN NADELMANN: Oh, well, basically, Colorado and Washington forced a shift in the U.S. global drug policy that’s turned out to be very significant in historic terms.
AMY GOODMAN: Ethan Nadelmann, we want to thank you for being with us, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.
I’m heading to Washington, D.C., today. I’ll be speaking at George Mason University at the HUB at 2:00 p.m., and on Sunday in Princeton, New Jersey at Nassau Presbyterian Church at 1:30. Hope to see folks there. Go to our website, democracynow.org.
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Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, discusses the company’s campaign for a successful genetically modified food labeling measure in its home state of Vermont, as well as one in Oregon — where it renamed one of its ice cream flavors as "Food Fight Fudge Brownie" — that ultimately failed to pass on Tuesday. "We are really proud of the ingredients we use," Greenfield says. "It is just so hard to imagine that other food companies wouldn’t want to tell consumers what is in their food." Ben & Jerry’s plans to complete its transition to all non-GMO ingredients by the end of the year. "That transition to all non-GMO ingredients is not going to raise the cost of a pint at all to a consumer. So it can be done." We are also joined by one of the leading advocates of an initiative that passed in Hawaii to suspend the cultivation of GMO crops. "We are beyond labeling," says Dr. Lorrin Pang. "For us, it is really more of an environmental health issue."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Jerry Greenfield, I’d like to bring you into this discussion. You’re the co-founder with Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s. Can you talk about your fight in Vermont, how you got involved with this? Now, this is a moratorium on crops in Maui. You were fighting in Vermont for labeling. That’s what failed in Oregon and Colorado on Tuesday, the attempt to get GMOs labeled. What happened to you guys at the beginning?
JERRY GREENFIELD: Well, the fight for mandatory GMO labeling has been going on for a few years in several different states around the country, and there’s actually activity still going on in 20-some-odd states. In Vermont, we went the legislative route. So, Ben & Jerry’s was actively involved in that, but there’s a great coalition here in Vermont of nonprofit groups, the Vermont Right to Know, that was incredibly active. And it was essentially citizens getting in touch with legislators. The [inaudible] Vermont said it was the most phone calls and contact they got about any issue. People are really passionate about the right to know what’s in their food. And that’s what the issue is here, is simply about the consumers’ right to know. It’s about transparency and being honest, so people have the right to choose what sort of foods they want to buy and eat themselves and feed their families.
AMY GOODMAN: At the beginning, you lost. I mean, Monsanto—explain the argument against labeling that the companies use. I mean, you weren’t even saying anything should be banned, that just that people should know.
JERRY GREENFIELD: [inaudible] great or GMOs are horrible, that you should like GMOs or not like GMOs. It’s simply about being able to know. And what the giant food industry companies—Monsanto, some of the chemical companies—say is that it’s going to add a huge cost to your food bills, which is simply not true. They spend millions of dollars trying to convince people that it’s going to make your food more expensive, whereas, in truth, changing a label on a food package costs essentially nothing. A company like Ben & Jerry’s changes its containers all the time, whether it’s for new ingredients, new marketing claims, whatever. It’s something you simply do in the normal cost of business, and there’s no increased cost at all. There’s no saying that any companies need to change their ingredients or do anything differently. It’s simply about being honest and telling consumers what’s in your food.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Jerry Greenfield, is Ben & Jerry’s opposed to GMOs, per se?
JERRY GREENFIELD: No, Ben & Jerry’s doesn’t really take a position on that. We always say we’re not scientists. You know, there really haven’t been independent studies. But our issue is simply about transparency, having a consumer have the right to know. You know, it’s funny [inaudible]. We are really proud of the ingredients we use, and we’re thrilled to tell people about it. And it’s just so hard to imagine that other food companies wouldn’t want to be talking about what’s in their products.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about this issue of cost, Jerry, that the companies raise? And they say, you know, "We’re going to be put out of business if we have to label products." What’s happened with Ben & Jerry’s in that way? I mean, your battle began, wanting to label rBGH, right, recombinant bovine growth hormone, in the milk that was used?
JERRY GREENFIELD: Yeah, that was about 20 years ago. Well, you know, so, first of all, that argument that it’s going to cost more money is simply made up. All of these food companies do business in countries around the world where there’s labeling. There is currently labeling in 64 countries. All these giant multinational food companies do business there, and they are doing just fine. Consumers Union, which puts out consumers reports, did a study for this last election in Oregon and discovered that adding labeling would cost about $3 a year to consumers’ bills. So that’s essentially nothing. And Ben & Jerry’s is right now finishing up its transition to become all non-GMO ingredients. So, we’ll be done with that by the [inaudible] year. And that transition to all non-GMO ingredients is not going to raise the cost of a pint at all to a consumer. So, it can be done. You know, certainly there is work involved. And for Ben & Jerry’s to make this conversion, you need to work with your suppliers, and, you know, you need to actually put some time and energy into it, but it doesn’t need to cost more to the consumer.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Pang, I’d like to as Dr. Pang, why do you think that the measure passed in Maui, but less aggressive measures, simply labeling efforts, failed in Colorado and Oregon?
DR. LORRIN PANG: Because on Maui we deal with—we think it’s experimental GM farming. And we feel that this experimental nature is more aggressive or threatening to us. We are beyond—for us, we are beyond labeling. When they do this genetic modifications farming, open-air farming here, we know, because I’m party to the class-action suit, that their use of pesticides, the amount and the types of use, is enormous. I’ve never seen such combinations used before. They cannot contain it. It’s going off into the water. It’s drifting into the schools, into our environment or into our oceans. And we don’t have the right—we don’t see it. We don’t know when it’s coming. And people get sick. Plus, if they ever were to grow GM food here—now they grow GM seed corn. That’s not even food. We’re supposed to feed ourselves, and we’re growing something to ship somewhere else to grow to feed their animals. So, for us, it’s really more of an environmental health issue, and we cannot seem to control it. It’s going beyond their borders. That is why we’ve taken a more aggressive approach.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Jerry Greenfield, in Vermont, you also have been active in those fights for labeling in Oregon and Colorado. Why do you think they went down? What are the biggest battles here? They also went down in California and in Washington state, enormous amounts of money, millions being put in by the companies
JERRY GREENFIELD: Yeah, in Oregon, the most recent ballot initiative just last Tuesday, the opponents to GMO labeling spent over $20 million, and the "yes" forces spent less than $8 million. So, the people fighting against consumers’ right to know are spending enormous amounts of money, and they’re just blanketing television and the airwaves with messages that it’s going to cost consumers more money, it’s going to be confusing. They just want to put doubt into consumers’ minds so that they won’t take action. And unfortunately, it seems to be really effective. I mean, even in a state like Washington state, which last year had a ballot initiative that narrowly failed, where once again the spending by the opposition far outweighed the spending for the "for," the ballot initiative lost by under 2 percentage points. But they did polling after the ballot initiative failed, and it showed that two-thirds of the people still wanted to have labeling. They just were convinced by all this advertising that [inaudible] bill wasn’t right, or seeds of doubt were sown in their minds. But people still favor labeling. They want it. It’s just that there’s enormous advertising—
AMY GOODMAN: Jerry, we just have a minute, and we just came out of the most expensive midterm elections in history, right, $4 billion. Ben & Jerry’s and you personally are opposed to money in politics. How do you link the whole issue of GMOs to the issue of money in politics and what’s called corporate personhood, if you could explain that?
JERRY GREENFIELD: Well, due to a couple of recent Supreme Court decisions, corporations are now considered to be [inaudible]—
AMY GOODMAN: Are now considered to be people.
JERRY GREENFIELD: —expenditures for elections. And this GMO labeling is all part of the same thing. You have these unlimited corporate expenditures to try to influence elections, and it’s completely undermining our democracy.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Jerry, we want to thank you for being with us, as well as Dr. Lorrin Pang, involved in the Maui struggle, one of five co-sponsors of Maui’s successful GMO moratorium initiative. Jerry Greenfield is co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, which has campaigned for GMO labeling measures. Special thanks to our friends at Vermont PBS in Colchester, where Jerry was speaking from.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. When we come back, we go to Mexico to speak with Ethan Nadelmann about the marijuana initiatives on the ballot around the country, the issue of marijuana decriminalization and other drug policy issues. Stay with us.
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Obama Vows to Act on Immigration Before Year’s End
President Obama is vowing to take executive action on immigration reform before the end of the year. In a news conference one day after the Republicans’ midterm victory, Obama said he had waited long enough.
President Obama: "I think it’s fair to say I’ve shown a lot of patience and have tried to work on a bipartisan basis as much as possible, and I’m going to keep on doing so. But in the meantime, let’s figure out what we can do lawfully through executive actions to improve the functioning of the existing system."
Obama had previously vowed to take executive action before the end of the summer, but then delayed his move until after the midterms. Although he offered no details, Obama’s executive action will likely include a reprieve to slow his record-breaking deportations.
Obama on Midterms: Voters Sent a Message, as Did the Majority Who Stayed Home
President Obama will host congressional leaders from both parties at the White House on Friday. In response to the Republican victory in the Senate and gains in the House, Obama said he has received a message both from voters who turned out and the many more who stayed home.
President Obama: "As president, I have a unique responsibility to try and make this town work. So, to everyone who voted, I want you to know that I hear you. To the two-thirds of voters who chose not to participate in the process yesterday, I hear you, too."
Obama Admin to Seek Congressional Authorization for Syria, Iraq Campaign
President Obama has announced he will finally seek congressional authorization for his military campaign against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Also at the top of the congressional agenda is a new budget measure to avoid a government shutdown next month.
White House to Await State Dept. Review of Keystone XL
After the midterms, Republicans’ top priorities will be to push through approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would carry carbon-intensive tar sands oil from Alberta to the Gulf Coast. Obama said he is open to working with Republicans on energy issues, but will await the State Department’s review process on Keystone.
President Obama: "On Keystone, there’s an independent process. It’s moving forward, and I’m going to let that process play out. … When I travel to Asia or I travel to Europe, their biggest envy is the incredible, home-grown U.S. energy production that is producing jobs and attracting manufacturing, because locating here means you’ve got lower energy costs. So our energy sector is booming. And I’m happy to engage Republicans with additional ideas for how we can enhance that."
McConnell: Keystone Approval, Cutting Corporate Taxes Among Top Priorities
In his own news conference one day after the midterms, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said approving the Keystone XL and cutting corporate taxes will top his agenda in 2015.
Sen. Mitch McConnell: "We need to embrace the energy revolution that is going on in our country, promote it. It’s hugely advantageous to America, not only in the area of energy independence, but employment. I mean, the employment figures connected with Keystone are stunning. ... The president has indicated he is interested in doing tax reform. We all know having the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world is a job exporter. All this talk about job exportation, what’s exporting jobs is having the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world."
McConnell is the presumptive Senate majority leader for when Republicans take control of Congress in January.
WHO: Profit-Motive in Drug Industry Has Hampered Ebola Response
The head of the World Health Organization has said the pharmaceutical industry is partially to blame for the rapid spread of Ebola. Speaking at a conference in Benin, Margaret Chan said drug companies have shunned efforts to find a cure for Ebola because it impacts impoverished countries unable to afford expensive drugs.
Dr. Margaret Chan: "The research and development incentive is virtually non-existent. A profit-driven industry does not invest in products for markets that cannot pay. WHO has been trying to make this issue visible for ages. Now people can see for themselves."
Chan also faulted the absence of effective public health systems in the West African countries worst hit by Ebola: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Rights Group: U.S. Strikes Target Nusra Front in Northwest Syria
The latest U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria have reportedly targeted the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said overnight bombings targeted Nusra in the northwest. Al-Nusra scored a major victory last week after seizing control of Syria’s Idlib province.
Palestinians Seek U.N. Intervention as Jerusalem Unrest Grows
Unrest continues in the occupied West Bank and in Jerusalem. On Wednesday, a Palestinian driver killed an Israeli pedestrian and wounded 14 others after ramming his car into them on the side of a road. Three Israeli soldiers were also wounded in a similar incident nearby. The attacks reportedly came in response to Israeli forces storming the al-Aqsa compound after Palestinians protested the planned entry of extremist Israelis. The clashes come as Israel announced plans for 500 new settlement homes in East Jerusalem. Jordan has recalled its ambassador to Israel in protest of what it calls an "increasing and unprecedented Israeli escalation." At the United Nations, Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour asked the Security Council to intervene.
Riyad Mansour: "This explosive situation, in which extremists in the Israeli government and among the settlers and other extreme groups are trying to push the region into religious confrontation, and that attitude and behavior will take us to a place where we don’t know the results of that intensification of this sensitive situation in occupied East Jerusalem."
Tens of Thousands Protest Student Disappearances in Mexico
Tens of thousands of people have marched in Mexico City and across Mexico to protest the disappearance of 43 students missing from the southern state of Guerrero for nearly six weeks. Demonstrators have denounced the inability of the federal and state governments to find the students and continued to call for them to be returned alive. The students disappeared following a police ambush, and it is believed they were turned over to a drug gang with close ties to the mayor of Iguala and his wife. The fugitive couple were arrested this week, but there is still no news of the students’ whereabouts. One group of demonstrators has been marching from Iguala toward Mexico City. Speaking in the state of Morelos, Israel Castrejon compared the disappearance to the Tlatelolco student massacre of 1968.
Israel Castrejon: "The reason for this march is to stop the homicide of youths that has existed for the past two decades. It seems that being young is a crime. It seems they want to exterminate this generation, as they did 48 years ago."
New Yorkers Hold Solidarity Rally for Missing Mexican Students
In New York City, about 100 people gathered to block traffic in front of the Mexican Consulate to demand justice for the missing students and protest the role of the Mexican government. Three people were reportedly arrested. Speaking at a news conference, Juan Carlos Ruiz of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island said U.S. support for the Mexican military is fueling violence in Mexico.
Juan Carlos Ruiz: "Today we can say this military aid is responsible for the massacres of our students, for the criminalization of our kids, for the disappearance of an unknown number of people. It is estimated that 80,000 people are missing since former President Calderón declared his war on drugs — at least 80,000. But we know that there are more than 120,000, or even 150,000. Mexico, the Mexican land, is a cemetery."
Kuwaiti Guantánamo Bay Prisoner Freed After 13 Years Without Charge
A Kuwaiti national has been freed from Guantánamo Bay after a nearly 13-year imprisonment without charge. Fawzi al Odah is only the second low-level Guantánamo prisoner to be freed this year despite President Obama’s declared intent to close the prison. Odah has been repatriated to Kuwait, where he will remain in custody for one year.
Marriage Equality Bans Overturned in Missouri, Kansas
Marriage equality bans have been overturned in two more states. On Wednesday, a circuit judge in St. Louis struck down Missouri’s LGBT marriage ban as unconstitutional. The ruling came one day after a federal judge overturned a similar ban in Kansas. More than 30 U.S. states now allow marriage equality.
Texas Prisoner’s Death Sentence Struck Down over Withheld Evidence
The death sentence of a Texas prisoner has been overturned after prosecutors withheld evidence that could have aided his defense. Alfred Dewayne Brown was convicted in 2005 for the murder of a Houston police officer in a robbery gone wrong. Brown has always maintained his innocence. His death sentence was nixed after lawyers found records of a phone call he had said he made from his girlfriend’s apartment at the time of the murder. Prosecutors say the phone record was withheld by accident, not intentionally. The case now goes to a lower court, but it’s unclear if prosecutors will retry it.
Energy Lobby Challenges Voter-Approved Fracking Ban in Denton, Texas
The top state energy lobby in Texas has filed an injunction to stop a voter-approved ban on hydraulic fracking. Voters in Denton made their town the first in Texas to ban the drilling technique by approving a ballot measure on Tuesday. Denton is known as the birthplace of fracking, which is widely used throughout Texas. The Texas Oil & Gas Association says the ban "is inconsistent with state law." Anti-fracking measures were also approved Tuesday in Athens, Ohio, and California’s San Benito County. In a statement, the Center for Biological Diversity said: "As voters showed, if regulators won’t protect them from fracking pollution, local communities will use the ballot box to protect themselves."
Richmond Voters Reject Chevron-Backed Mayor, Council Candidates
Voters in Richmond, California, have rejected an attempt by the oil giant Chevron to influence the local city government. Chevron spent more than $3 million to back a slate of pro-Chevron candidates for mayor and city council in Tuesday’s election. But none of Chevron’s candidates won, with voters electing the candidates the company opposed. The vote comes two years after a massive fire at Chevron’s oil refinery in Richmond sent 15,000 residents to the hospital. According to one tally, Chevron’s failed effort cost it $72 per voter.
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